Mo’nique returns in The Reading’

It’s one thing to summon the dead; it’s a neat trick to get them to answer. And there’s no YouTube video teaching us how to get rid of them once invited back to this locality.

The dark nature of seances and hauntings gets a spirited workout in the 2022 horror film “The Reading,” streaming on BET+. Produced by Lee Daniels, written and directed by Courtney Glaude, the shocker stars Mo’Nique (“Precious”) as Emma, a popular author who lost her family, and nearly her life, after a violent home invasion. After writing a book about the incident to work through her trauma, she consults celebrated 19-year-old medium Sky Brown (Chasity Sereal) as an elaborate form of book publicity. Unfortunately for Emma, Sky’s powers work all too well and the spirits she recalls have no idea they are being used for marketing purposes. The sudden discovery that Sky is the real deal is just the firsts of many shocks that upstage

Emma’s stunt.

› Speaking of shocks, the decidedly low-budget film “Skinamarink” begins streaming on Shudder, the platform dedicated to the horror genre. (Note: In an earlier column that ran on the date of the film’s theatrical release, I mistakenly reported that Shudder had begun making this film available.) In its brief run, this film, about two siblings awakening in a dark house to find their father gone and the doors and windows vanished, made more than a million dollars, a huge return on its $15,000 budget.

Some horror critics have described “Skinamarink” as the scariest film ever made. Others dismissed it as an experiment in minimalism, more appropriate to an arthouse or museum.

› Weird people and their money fascinate many. Now streaming on Netflix, the four-part docuseries “Gunther’s Millions” explores the peculiar series of events that made a German shepherd the heir to a considerable fortune.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

› The final four prepare a seafood meal fit for a magazine spread “Hell’s Kitchen” (8 p.m., Fox,

TV-14).

› What is the season finale of “Celebrity Jeopardy!” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG)?

› Violence erupts inside an ambulance on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).

› Director Baz Luhrman lends his usual lurid exuberance to the 2022 musical biography “Elvis” (9 p.m., HBO Signature). Nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Austin Butler), but, notably, not Best Director.

› Cinemax reels off two mid-1990s Chris Farley/ David Spade comedies,

“Tommy Boy” (8 p.m.) and “Black Sheep” (9:35 p.m.). Farley died in 1997.

SERIES NOTES

› Feeling left out on “Young Sheldon” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).

› A random suspect emerges in the death of a graduate student on “Law & Order” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-14).

› A ghost-hunter and his gadgetry check in to the inn on “Ghosts” (8:30 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).